The U.S. Navy battleship, USS Tennessee (BB-43) passing the camera while conducting trials on Long Island Sound, in October, 1920, after being fitted out following her commissioning at the Brooklyn Navy Yard on on June 3, 1920. Her triple turret 14-inch guns are clearly visible as is the name, Tennessee, on her stern. She is seen again, raising plumes of black smoke as she steams in the opposite direction. All four of her triple 14-inch gun turrets are visible in silhouette. She is making good speed in very calm waters. (The camera ship is challenged to keep pace.) The Tennessee maneuvers to port in a fairly sharp turn, and the camera ship moves into her wake. A civilian, in hat and overcoat, is seen momentarily on the camera ship. More views of the Tennessee, include some from a distance as she maneuvers and heads toward the camera ship.

Glimpse of pilot and crewmember with binoculars, inside a U.S. Navy K-5 anti-submarine blimp in flight over Long Island Sound. Aerial view of the blimp, over water. View from the blimp, of a submarine moving at hight speed, partially submerged, in the water below. Later views of the submarine fully surfaced moving at low speed.

Baseball great, Babe Ruth starting to trot around the bases after hitting a home run. An inverted stunt biplane, N57323 with "EM Avery" readable on fuselage while flying inverted. A wing walker is strapped under the airplane (on top wing, now underneath). The airplane rolls over into upright position, trailing white smoke to be more easily seen by spectators on the ground. A 1920s jazz band playing in a night club. A couple and then four women, dancing the Charleston. View from car driving along New York street surrounded by nighttime illuminations. A flagpole sitter atop structure behind an RKO Keith's Advertising sign. Closeup of the man on his perch. A room full of women sewing garments in a factory. Formal dressed couples at a city supper club, where an orchestra is playing. Exhausted couples clinging to one another on dance floor during a marathon dance contest. Gangsters firing a machine gun from window of a moving car. Charles A. Lindbergh steps past a policeman, to board his Ryan monoplane, "Spirit of St.Louis,"at Roosevelt field, Long Island, New York, on May 20, 1927. View of takeoff roll. Registration number "NX-211," visible atop the right wing. Manhattan ticker tape parade welcoming Lindbergh back to New York City, following his successful solo transatlantic flight. Charles Lindbergh speaking at a microphone. Traders on floor of the New York Stock Exchange during era of frantic stock market speculation by many ordinary Americans. Labor strife at the gates of a Massey-Harris Company plant, with workers fleeing attacks by men with clubs hired by the company. Boy workers pose for a photograph While narrator mentions Child labor Act declared unconstitutional (1922). A girl worker. Boys employed as coal miners. Workers installing body panels on cars and working on engines in automobile production lines. Partially completed vehicles driving out of an automobile factory. Babe Ruth rounding third base and coming to home plate after hitting a home run in a baseball game.

Shows several aviation "firsts" accomplished by U.S. Army Air Service aviators in the period from 1918 through 1924. A close formation of biplanes in flight. President and Mrs. Woodrow Wilson chat with Major Fleet, Officer in charge, on the occasion of the first air mail flight, inaugurated on May 15,1918 between Washington DC and New York.The mail is loaded into the Curtis JN-4 aircraft. Pilot in the cockpit. The aircraft takes off and in flight. Air Service. Mention of aviators helping spot forest fires. Smoke rising from forest fires and mountain ranges. In 1920, U.S. Army Captain St. Clair Streett is seen with some of his Squadron who flew four De Havilland DH-4 aircraft 9,000 miles, from New York City to Nome, Alaska. Two of the men play with pet dogs. Their itinerary is painted on the side of one of the aircraft, along with the names of pilot and mechanic (C.E. Crumline and J.E. Long). In 1923 the first non stop coast-to-coast flight was made in the Fokker T-2 aircraft. . A sign on the aircraft reads 'Army Air Service non stop coast to coast'.First Lieutenants Oakley O.Kelly and John A. Macready board the aircraft, at Roosevelt Field, Long Island, New York, on May 2, 1923. Their Fokker T-2 in flight. Their arrival at Rockwell Field, on Coronado Island (San Diego) California. In 1924, Lt. Russell Maughan is seen boarding his P-1 Hawk airplane at Mitchel Field, on Long Island, New York, and taking off , bound for Crissy Field at the Presidio, San Francisco, California. His goal is the first dawn-to-dusk, coast-to-coast flight. Views of his P-1 Hawk airplane flying over Manhattan, New York City.

Documentary depicts the end of the 1920s good times in the U.S., leading into the Great Depression. Mildred Unger, age 10, performs a wing walker charleston dance while out on the wing of a JN-4 "Jenny" airplane in flight over Los Angeles in 1926.Four girls dancing on the top of a building higher than those around it, in Boston, Massachusetts. Amusement park patrons riding a roller coaster. People out driving through a park in their automobiles. Patrons enjoying themselves at the Steeplechase amusement park in Coney Island, New York. A crane piling old cars in a heap at a junk yard. But following the Wall Street crash of 1929, conditions change in America. Group of people receiving food assistance in a city. A man, woman, and baby, in a tent (probably migrant workers). The famous 1936 photo, "Migrant Mother" by Dorothea Lange, of migrant worker, Florence Owens Thompson, with two of her children. Men receiving food from a city soup kitchen. Dejected unemployed men.

Aerial views of Mitchel Field in Hempstead Plains of Long Island, New York. Major General Frank Andrews of U.S. Army Air Corps, General Headquarters Air Force, and staff standing around a large plotting board, with models of airplanes, guns and boats on the plotting board. They are planning a test of the defense of aircraft factories in the region from air attack. Five PB-2As parked in a row at Mitchel Field. Crew operating range finder and aircraft sound detector. Soldiers turn searchlight to the right. Fireman opens switch box door on wall and pulling switch to notify power station staff of the drill, which was the first aerial bombardment blackout drill of its kind in the United States. Workman pulling main power switch in power station to create blackout conditions in city as protection from aerial bombing. Night time aerial views of City of Farmingdale in New York lit up and then going dark all at once as power is cut during blackout. Batteries of the 62nd anti aircraft post artillery swing into action operating searchlights directed at incoming bombers. The bombers drop flares during the test, as ground crews practice locating the "enemy" aircraft in search light beams.B-10, the all metal monoplane bomber in flight during night. Flares descending. In the mock test, the bombers prevail and the defenses fail to protect all of the aircraft factories. End of clip shows elevated night time views of New York City and Times Square area as seen from the air and from high up tall skyscraper buildings of Manhattan. Bright lights and lit signs of city seen from above as narrator suggests the threat against New York City from aerial bombardment by a foreign force (early in World War 2).